Negative Interpretation Research Articles

Can mental imagery boost the effect of the positive cognitive bias modification of interpretation (CBM-I) on interpretation bias and memory bias?

Background and objectivesCognitive bias modification of interpretation (CBM-I) has been widely used and yielded mixed results. This experiment explored the unique role of mental imagery in positive CBM-I. Methods60 participants (M = 23.13, SD = 1.04) were randomly assigned to a imagery-based positive CBM-I group (imagery group) and a conventional verbal-based positive CBM-I group (control group). The imagery group received additional practice in generating mental imagery and were instructed to fully focus on the imagery during the formal training. The dependent variables included interpretation bias (probe latencies and similarity ratings for recognition task), memory bias, and intrusive memory. Results(1) For the positive probe scenario, the reaction time of the two groups was shorter in the posterior five blocks than the anterior five blocks. However, the difference in latency between pre- and post- training for the imagery group was larger than that of the control group; (2) For the recognition task, the positive target statement score was significantly higher, while the negative one was significantly lower for the imagery group than that of the control group (3) The imagery group (vs. control); showed more beneficial effects on memory bias. LimitationsThe limitations consisted of the difference in time of the manipulation between the two groups, the richness of the imagery operationalization, generalizability, and the lack of pre-manipulation of interpretation bias assessments. ConclusionsThe imagery-based CBM-I led to more positive interpretation biases, less negative interpretations, and more positive memory biases, indicating that mental imagery can boost the effect of the positive CBM-I.

Relentless, aggressive, and pervasive: Exploring gender minimization and sexual abuse experienced by women ex-military veterans.

Contextually embedded and sanctioned gender minimization and sexual abuse toward female personnel within the military appears widespread. Left unabated, mental health complications of female personnel will challenge care responsibilities for military organizations. Interview data from six ex-military women that sought positive and negative interpretations of gender minimization and sexual abuse while in the military was analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Analysis revealed two superordinate themes: (a) Immature Culture, and (b) Ejection and Growth. These overarched four subordinate themes that explored fostered patriarchy and male privilege in the military. Participants expressed experiencing relentless belittling that eroded early adolescent goals of success and aborted their ability to thrive psychologically. By association, interpersonal violence compounded by organizational complicity triggered internalized shame and narcissistic defenses. Discharging from the military is remembered as a painful, isolated struggle for these participants as they sought to make sense of their fragmented identities as women. With time, all participants acknowledged pride in skills achieved during military life, and the strength to speak out against embedded organizational abuse. A persistent ruminative struggle to make sense of complex systemic biases against women that allowed organizational abuse to flourish facilitated posttraumatic growth. For these participants, personal experiences of gender minimization and sexual abuse in the military incubated a betrayal of hope and moral safety. As women, they felt violated at an organizational level seemingly orchestrated by male privilege and patriarchy. Clinical priorities include reparative validation and holistic trauma support underpinned by trauma and posttraumatic growth frameworks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Can we challenge attention and interpretation threat biases in rescued child labourers with a history of physical abuse using a computerised cognitive training task? Data on feasibility, acceptability and target engagement

Child labourers are more likely to have experienced physical victimisation, which may increase risk for anxiety/depression, by shaping threat biases in information-processing. To target threat biases and vulnerability for anxiety/depression, we evaluated whether Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) training could be feasibly and acceptably delivered to rescued youth labourers. Seventy-six physically abused rescued labourers aged 14–17 (40 from Nepal, 36 from India) in out-of-home care institutions received either multi-session computerised CBM or control training. Training targeted attention away from threat to positive cues and the endorsement of benign over threat interpretations. Feasibility and acceptability data were gathered along with pre and post intervention measures of attention and interpretation bias and emotional and behavioural symptoms. In terms of feasibility, uptake (proportion of those who completed the pre-intervention assessment from those who consented) and retention (proportion of those who completed the post-intervention assessment from those who completed the pre-intervention assessment) were above 75% in both countries. Average acceptability ratings were mostly ‘moderate’ on most indices for both countries, and none of the participants reported experiencing serious adverse events or reactions in response to or during the trial. Secondarily, CBM participants showed increased attention to positive and decreased attention to threatening stimuli, as well as increased endorsement of benign interpretation and decreased endorsement in negative interpretations of ambiguous social situations. Symptom changes were less clear. Delivering CBM to former child labourers in out-of-home care institutions has interventive potential.ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03625206, Date of registration: August 10, 2018.

Default biases in the interpretation of English negation, conjunction, and disjunction

Previous research has hypothesized default interpretive biases for three types of ambiguities with English logical words and, or, and not. First, disjunction (A or B) is hypothesized to be biased towards an exclusive interpretation in upward-entailing environments and an inclusive interpretation in downward-entailing environments (Levinson 2000, Chierchia 2004, Breheny et al. 2005). A negated disjunction (not A or B) is claimed to be biased towards a “neither-nor” interpretation (i.e. wide scope negation: ¬[A ∨ B]) and a negated conjunction is said to be biased towards an “either-not” interpretation (i.e. wide-scope negation: ¬[A ∧ B]) (Szabolcsi 2002, Szabolcsi & Haddican 2004). We tested these hypotheses within the same experimental paradigm with 149 English-speaking participants and found disjunction to be biased towards an inclusive interpretation across three different entailment environments: episodic declaratives, questions, and conditional antecedents. Our results also confirmed that English negated disjunction is biased towards a “neither-nor” (wide scope negation) interpretation but the results did not show an “either-not” bias (wide scope negation) for negated conjunction.

Effects of a Smartphone-Based, Multisession Interpretation-Bias Modification for Anxiety: Positive Intervention Effects and Low Attrition.

While interpretation-bias modification (IBM) is an effective intervention for treating anxiety, it is not broadly used in clinical or daily practice. To this end, this study developed and tested a smartphone-based IBM application. We adopted the ambiguous situation paradigm as an intervention task in conjunction with robust training materials that broadly covered situations encountered in daily life. We recruited participants with high-trait anxiety and divided them into three groups: (1) positive training; (2) 50% positive-50% negative training; and (3) no-training control. The first two groups completed 28 days of smartphone-based training (IBM in positive cases), and all groups completed six rounds of assessments. The smartphone-based IBM training changed positive and negative endorsements and more specific measures of interpretation bias, thus reducing anxiety. The results also showed that changes in the number of negative interpretations played a mediating role in anxiety reduction. It is notable that the attrition rate was extremely low across the experiment. Our follow-up showed that positive gains persisted throughout the intervening period. Smartphone-based IBM can help individuals with anxiety shift negative biases, broaden their thoughts, enhance their information processing, and effectively target the clinical features of anxiety.

Social rejection sensitivity and its role in adolescent emotional disorder symptomatology

BackgroundMost emotional disorders first emerge during adolescence, a time characterized by heightened sensitivity to social information, especially social rejection. Social rejection sensitivity (SRS), then, may be a promising intervention target.MethodsTo explore this, 357 participants (M (SD) age = 19.40 (4.18), 63% female) completed self-report measures of SRS, its proposed antecedent, perceived parenting style, its proposed behavioral correlate, negative interpretation bias, and its proposed clinical correlate, emotional disorder symptoms. Participants additionally completed a single session of a social interpretation bias modification task, the ambiguous social scenarios task (ASST).ResultsSRS was associated with perceived parental rejection, while controlling for other types of maladaptive parenting. SRS partially accounted for variance in the relationship between perceived parental rejection and emotional disorder symptomatology, as well as the relationship between negative interpretation bias and emotional disorder symptoms. Learning rates (i.e., change in reaction time across the task) on the ASST differed as a function of age and SRS, such that younger participants with higher SRS showed the slowest rate of learning. Moreover, individual differences in SRS accounted for the magnitude of change in negative interpretation bias before and after the ASST. Individuals with greater SRS showed less change in interpretation bias.ConclusionsSRS appears strongly associated with emotional disorder symptoms in adolescents. Importantly, SRS was associated with the malleability of negative interpretation bias, which may help account for the mixed findings on the effectiveness of interpretation-bias-modification-paradigms in adolescents.

Negative interpretation of ambiguous bodily symptoms among illness-anxious individuals: Exploring the role of developmental and maintenance constructs.

Cognitive factors play an essential role in the development and maintenance of anxiety problems. Among individuals with illness anxiety problems, their interpretation of bodily symptoms is a crucial factor in the determination of their ability to regulate their emotions. The catastrophic interpretation of ambiguous bodily symptoms and changes, known as interpretation bias, in line with the failure to reappraise the symptoms in safer ways, is supposed to increase the levels of anxiety in illness-anxious individuals. This study aimed to address the statistical limitations of the direct (self-report) measure of interpretation bias, using an indirect (online interpretation bias task) measure for assessing biased interpretations of bodily symptoms. In addition, we examined the contribution of self-report anxiety sensitivity (AS), intolerance of uncertainty (IU), interpretation bias, and reappraisal to illness anxiety problems in a subclinical population and compared it with controls with low levels of illness anxiety. Illness-anxious individuals made more negative interpretations of ambiguous, potentially health-threatening information. They used less reappraisal to regulate their emotion. Among the measures, the physical subscale of AS and the reaction time to the safe resolution of ambiguous information were the best factors that could contribute to the differentiation between the illness-anxious individuals and non-anxious individuals. Our findings provided further support for the biased processing of information related to physical symptoms among individuals with illness anxiety. AS-physical and safe resolutions for ambiguous situations could differentiate the illness-anxious and the control groups better than other factors. These findings suggest that a change of interpretation of ambiguous bodily symptoms among individuals suffering from chronic conditions can be a possible intervention to target anxiety and improve patients' lives.

The Emotion Regulation Mechanism in Neurotic Individuals: The Potential Role of Mindfulness and Cognitive Bias.

Neuroticism is a personality trait that impacts daily life and raises the risk of mental problems and physical illnesses. To understand the emotion regulation mechanism of neurotic individuals, we developed two complementary studies to examine the effects of mindfulness and negative cognitive bias. In Study 1, four scales (EPQ-RSC, FFMQ, CERQ, NCPBQ) were used for assessment. Correlation analysis and structural comparison showed that: (1) the level of neuroticism was positively correlated with negative emotion regulation; (2) negative cognitive bias mediated the relationship between neuroticism and emotion regulation; (3) mindfulness and negative cognitive bias mediated the relationship in a chain. Study 1 showed that cognitive bias may play a key role in the emotion regulation mechanism. Study 2 further explored the cognitive bias of neurotic individuals using three behavioral experiments. A mixed-design ANOVA indicated that individuals with high neuroticism levels exhibited negative attention, memory, and interpretation biases. Our findings extend previous research on emotion regulation problems of neurotic individuals and broaden the field to personality-based emotion disorders. In particular, a theoretical rationale is provided for the application of cognitive behavioral therapy, such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), to the emotion regulation of neurotic individuals.

МОДУСНАЯ КАТЕГОРИЗАЦИЯ ОШИБОЧНЫХ ДЕЙСТВИЙ В АНГЛОЯЗЫЧНОЙ КАРТИНЕ МИРА

The study discusses linguistic categorization of erroneous cognitions verbalized by linguistic units like mistake, make a mistake, error, blunder, make a blunder, gaffe, make a gaffe, wrong, get something wrong, make a wrongdoing, wrongness. Of central concern in the research is the issue of the modus (interpretative) character of the concept MISTAKE that serves as the conceptual basis of the modus category of erroneous cognitions. The paper highlights the issue that the concept MISTAKE as a conceptually complex knowledge structure activates two types of knowledge representation: the primary knowledge representation of the events in the physical world (Тelling him the truth)) and the secondary evaluative representation of the knowledge once verbalized (was a mistake). The paper focuses on the interpretative function of negative evaluative interpretation that serves as the conceptual basis of the modus category of erroneous cognitions. The author comes to the conclusion that the modus category of erroneous cognitions serves to interpret the secondary representation of knowledge from the perspective of the negative evaluation conceptualized as ‘an action that produces a result that is not intended.’ The modus function of the negative evaluative interpretation serves as the conceptual basis of the modus category of erroneous cognitions. The findings obtained may be helpful for further study of the processes of evaluative interpretation and evaluative categorization as an integral part of human cognition.

Kauṇḍabhaṭṭa’s View on Negation in the Nañarthanirṇaya of the Vaiyākaraṇabhūṣaṇasāra

Studies on negation in the school of Vyākaraṇa have focused on the early period of its development, especially on the interpretation of prasajya and paryudāsa types of negation provided by early commentators starting with Patañjali and elaborated on by Bhartṛhari. The post-Bhartṛhari period requires thorough research when it comes to the theory of meaning and cognition proposed by Indian grammarians. The present article analyses the interpretation of negation proposed by Kauṇḍabhaṭṭa in the Vaiyākaraṇabhūṣaṇasāra and shows it against the background of theory of negation that had been developing for centuries within the school of Vyākaraṇa.

Effectiveness of Group Poetry Therapy of Mazza's Multidimensional Model (Based on the Romantic Debates of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh) on Response to Intrusion Memories, Automatic Thoughts and Affect Balance in Female Students with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder

Objective: Iranian culture has always been mixed with Persian poetry and literature. Poetry therapy is also considered one of the complementary methods of psychotherapy. The present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of group poetry therapy of Mazza's multidimensional model (based on Shahnameh Ferdowsi's romantic debates) on Response to Intrusions, automatic thoughts, and affect balance in female students with premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Method: The research method was quasi-experimental. The statistical population included all students living in the dormitory of Farhangian University of Ardabil, and from this population, during three stages, 20 participants with premenstrual dysphoric disorder were selected as samples in two experimental and control groups. Measures including the Response to Intrusions Questionnaire, Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire, and Affect Balance Scale were performed on both groups, and the poetry therapy protocol based on Shahnameh Ferdowsi's romantic debates was performed on the experimental group. Results: The findings showed that after controlling the effects of the pre-test, the experimental group had a significant improvement in each of the factors of negative interpretation (F= 40.990, p<0.01), rumination (F=23.367, p<0.01), suppression (F=13.753, p<0.01), distress (F=16.924, p<0.01), automatic thoughts (F=28.874, p<0.01), positive affect balance (F=13.892, p<0.01) and negative affect balance (F=55.887, p<0.01). Conclusion: Based on findings, Ferdowsi's romantic debates in the context of group therapy can lead to a reduction of PMDD symptoms by launching positive therapeutic components such as catharsis and empathy.

Supplemental Material for Negative Interpretation Bias Connects to Real-World Daily Affect: A Multistudy Approach

Supplemental Material for Negative Interpretation Bias Connects to Real-World Daily Affect: A Multistudy Approach

Psychological Processes Associated With Resilience in UK-Based Unpaid Caregivers During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Unpaid caregivers have faced and dealt with additional challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding the psychological processes associated with their resilience is warranted. The objective of this study was to examine the associations between resilience with mental distress, emotion regulation strategies (i.e., reappraisal and suppression) and interpretation bias in adult caregivers. Participants were living in the UK, aged 18+, and consisted of 182 unpaid caregivers of an adult aged 18+ living with a long-term health condition, and 120 non-caregivers. Data were collected in an online study during the first national UK COVID-19 lockdown (May and September 2020). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses explored whether emotion regulation strategies and interpretation bias explained unique variance in levels of resilience in caregivers whilst controlling for anxiety and depression. Compared to non-caregivers, caregivers reported higher levels of anxiety, depression, negative interpretation bias and lower levels of resilience. Emotion regulation strategies did not differ between groups. Within caregivers, greater resilience was associated with lower mood disturbance, a positive interpretation bias, and greater use of cognitive reappraisal and lower use of suppression strategies to regulate emotions. Emotion regulation and interpretation bias together predicted an additional 15% of variance in current levels of resilience. Our findings indicate that psychological mechanisms such as emotion regulation strategies, particularly reappraisal, and interpretation bias are associated with resilience in caregivers. Although preliminary, our findings speak to exciting clinical possibilities that could form the target of interventions to improve resilience and lower mental distress in unpaid caregivers.

Size nouns in Romanian. Gliding along the quantifying – evaluating continuum

The paper looks at size nouns of the type grămadă ‘heap / pile’ in Romanian and classifies them into two categories: size nouns with a comparative interpretation (Doetjes and Rooryck 2003) and size nouns with a quantifying interpretation (Brems 2007; 2010), the latter reading being sometimes contextually extended to a third type of interpretation, the negative evaluation interpretation (Brems 2010). The two major types of readings that size nouns may have are read off a head-complement syntactic structure, typical for pseudopartitive constructions, which size nouns+de+N constitute a subcategory of (Tănase-Dogaru 2017). The comparative interpretation arises as a reflex of the semi-lexicality of the size noun, while the quantifying interpretation is a reflex of the size noun having lost its original lexical meaning, and therefore serving a functional role.

Offline rTMS inhibition of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex impairs reappraisal efficacy.

In this study we verified the causal role of the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in emotional regulation using a strategy of reappraisal, which involves intentionally changing the meaning of an affective event to reduce its emotional impact. Healthy participants (n = 26; mean age = 25.4) underwent three sessions of inhibitory continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) applied on three different days over the left or right DLPFC, or the vertex. After applying the stimulation protocol participants were presented with neutral and negative pictorial stimuli that had to be either passively watched or reappraised. The efficacy of emotional control was quantified using the Late Positive Potential (LPP), the neural marker of motivated attention and elaborated stimulus processing. The results showed that reappraisal was compromised after inhibitory stimulation of the right DLPFC compared to the vertex. This impairment of affective modulation was reflected in both early (350-750ms) and late (750-1500ms) time windows. As no session differences during the passive watching conditions were found, the decrease in reappraisal efficacy due to non-specific changes in basic perceptual processing was considered unlikely. Instead, we suggest that inhibition of the right DLPFC primarily affects the top-down mechanism of attentional deployment. This results in disturbances of attentional processes that are necessary to thoroughly elaborate the content of affective stimuli to enable their new, less negative interpretation.

Settledness, Polarity and Mood in Spanish Complements

The paper discusses the effects of mood on the availability of an existential interpretation of negative words such as nadie "nobody" in the complement of emotive factive predicates in Spanish. In these contexts, the subjunctive mood allows nadie to be interpreted as a non-negated existential quantified expression, ∃x, equivalent to alguien. On the other hand, the indicative mood allows only for a negative universal interpretation of the expression, ∀x¬, or a negated existential interpretation, ¬∃x. An account of this phenomenon is proposed in terms of the notion of settledness. A proposition expressed by an indicative complement is asserted, which indicates the speaker's intention that it be settled in the context set. The proposition is grammatically settled. A proposition in the subjunctive mood is not asserted, the speaker is not indicating an intention that it be settled, it is in a grammatically unsettled state (p/¬p: a state in which p and ¬p are left undetermined). The word nadie is analyzed as denoting a quantity scale <∀, ∃>. Within an asserted complement, the interpretation of nadie is fixed at the highest, most informative, point in the scale, ∀. On the other hand, within the grammatically unsettled complement of an affective predicate, the interpretation of nadie is not fixed at the highest point in the scale. This indeterminacy allows it to assume a value at the lowest point, ∃. It is noted that this possibility provides an expressive tool which may be used to add an emphatic hue to an utterance.

Reliability of an Interpretation Bias Task of Ambiguous Faces and Its Relationship with Social Anxiety, Depression, and Looming Maladaptive Style

Social anxiety (SA) and depression have been associated with negative interpretation biases of social stimuli. Studies often assess these biases with ambiguous faces, as people with SA and depression tend to interpret such faces negatively. However, the test–retest reliability of this type of task is unknown. Our objectives were to develop a new interpretation bias task with ambiguous faces and analyse its properties in terms of test–retest reliability and in relation to SA, depression, and looming maladaptive style (LMS). Eight hundred sixty-four participants completed a task in which they had to interpret morphed faces as negative or positive on a continuum between happy and angry facial expressions. In addition, they filled out scales on SA, depressive symptoms, and LMS. Eighty-four participants completed the task again after 1–2 months. The test–retest reliability was moderate (r = .57–.69). The data revealed a significant tendency to interpret faces as negative for people with higher SA and depressive symptoms and with higher LMS. Longer response times to interpret the happy faces were positively associated with a higher level of depressive symptoms. The reliability of the present task was moderate. The results highlight associations between the bias interpretation task and SA, depression, and LMS.

MUSIBAH DAN PANDEMI COVID-19: PEMBACAAN MAQĀṢIDĬ TERHADAP AYAT MUSIBAH DALAM AL-QUR’AN

Assumptions regarding the Covid-19 pandemic as a disaster in a negative interpretation have become a phenomenon in people's lives. Misguided assumptions about the spread of the Covid-19 Pandemic cannot be fully justified. This article examined the meaning of calamities and pandemics, especially the reading of maqāṣidĭ on disaster verses in the Al-Qur'an. This research utilized a qualitative approach with a literature review method. The material objects in this study include verses related to calamities in the Al-Qur'an. While the formal object includes the maqāṣidĭ interpretation approach of Abdul Mustaqim. The three points outlined include disaster theology in the Qur'an through reading maqāṣidĭ interpretations, classification of disasters and the Covid-19 pandemic, and the relationship between the Covid-19 pandemic and disaster in two tendencies of meaning. The results of this study indicated that the calamity referred to in the Qur'an is everything that befalls humans which happens by His will. The classification of disasters in the Covid-19 pandemic is both a blessing and a misfortune. Through ḥifz adjustments, the disaster meaning against the Covid-19 pandemic includes not only negative meanings, but also positive meanings.

Reconceptualising freedom in the 21st century: neoliberalism vs. degrowth

ABSTRACT The hegemonic role of neoliberal ideas in today’s political-economic thought and practice has shaped the common way of thinking about freedom in Western society and more generally in the international community. This involves a negative, individualistic and market-centred interpretation of the concept. In contrast, visions of a degrowth society offer a radical alternative based on Cornelius Castoriadis’ notion of individual and social autonomy. We present both positions and explain their differences. We then follow this up by reporting on a questionnaire conducted at the 2018 Degrowth Conference in Malmö, Sweden. This empirical study of the degrowth movement probes the extent to which advocates actually follow the Castoriadian as opposed to the hegemonic neoliberal theory. While participants were found to hold positions consistent with the Castoriadian theory, we also identify contradictory and under-conceptualised aspects in their understanding of freedom. This points to the need for the degrowth movement to directly address its theoretical foundations, and elaborate on and strengthen its vision of freedom compatible with a future degrowth society in order to avoid potential co-option and becoming sub-hegemonic.

Neural correlations between cognitive deficits and emotion regulation strategies: understanding emotion dysregulation in depression from the perspective of cognitive control and cognitive biases.

The link between cognitive function and emotion regulation may be helpful in better understanding the onset, maintenance, and treatment for depression. However, it remains unclear whether there are neural correlates between emotion dysregulation and cognitive deficits in depression. To address this question, we first review the neural representations of emotion dysregulation and cognitive deficits in depression (including deficits in cognitive control and cognitive biases). Based on the comparisons of neural representations of emotion dysregulation versus cognitive deficits, we propose an accessible and reasonable link between emotion dysregulation, cognitive control, and cognitive biases in depression. Specifically, cognitive control serves the whole process of emotion regulation, whereas cognitive biases are engaged in emotion regulation processes at different stages. Moreover, the abnormal implementation of different emotion regulation strategies in depression is consistently affected by cognitive control, which is involved in the dorsolateral, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, and the anterior cingulate cortex. Besides, the relationship between different emotion regulation strategies and cognitive biases in depression may be distinct: the orbitofrontal cortex contributes to the association between ineffective reappraisal and negative interpretation bias, while the subgenual prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex underline the tendency of depressed individuals to ruminate and overly engage in self-referential bias. This review sheds light on the relationship between cognitive deficits and emotion dysregulation in depression and identifies directions in need of future attention.